Bids were due in last night for Fresh Meadows Apartments, the giant Queens development that’s home to 3,285 families and a familiar landmark for motorists on the Long Island Expressway.

If you didn’t know that Fresh Meadows – one of the city’s largest master-planned residential communities, built in the 1940s – was for sale, you’re not alone. The owners quietly began marketing the property just two months ago.

The well-maintained, middle-income, rent-stabilized complex consists of 140 buildings. Last sold in 1997 for an estimated $180 million, it is half-owned by Lehman Bros., which sources say is looking to cash out.

“The sale offering is driven by Lehman,” said a source familiar with the project. Estimates on the sale range from $250 million to $300 million.

The other partners in Fresh Meadows are the Witkoff Group and Insignia Financial Group. The retail portion of the complex was sold separately four years ago for $50 million to Federal Realty Trust.

The “invitation to bid” notes that Fresh Meadows’ average in-place rents are 26 percent below market – meaning they can only go up. Conversion to co-ops or condos is possible.

Joshua Muss, developer of the Oceana complex in Brighton Beach, points out that rent stabilization law limits potential return on apartment ownership in the outer boroughs. “A landlord can remove an apartment from rent stabilization once the apartment hits $2,000 a month,” Muss noted. “But in Queens, the rents start from a much lower base than in Manhattan.”

The sale is being brokered by Insignia/ESG’s Ron Cohen and Richard Baxter, and Lehman’s Robert Ashmun and Jason Ourman.